2i10 
THE COTTAGE GAKDENER. 
January 22. 
THE CHRYSANTHEMUAT: ITS HTSTORY, 
VARIETIES, AND CULTURE. 
Is it nnt very curious that we never heard of the wild 
plant from wliieh the Chinese Chrysanthemums have 
t)een raised? Eortuno says nothing about it; nor any 
otlier traveller, as far as 1 am aware. Is it true that it 
is a native, or grow’s naturally, in Cochin-China? 
Ijouriero, the Portuguese missionary, is said to hfivo 
named it in his “ Elora of Cochin-China.” A flora of 
native plants should not emhrace foreign plants. Lou- 
ricro was thirty years in Cochin-China. Rumphius, a 
great naturalist, who went out as a physician, and was 
chief magistrate and commercial agent for the Dutch at 
Amboyna, where he died in 170(), mentions several 
double Chrysanthemums as doing better in pots than in 
borders round Amboyna, one of the Molucca or Spice 
Islands. That some of the raco are natives of Japan, 
we have the testimonies of Ktempfer and Tournefort. 
Kaempfer was, probably, the first European author who 
had seen double Chrysanthemums growing in tlie open 
gardens. As physician to the Dutch I'lmbassy from 
Batavia to the Japanese Court, he arrived at Nagasaki, 
in Japan, in the autumn of 1(190, just in time to sec the 
Chrysanthemums in bloom in the open borders, and 
lie describes eight double varieties of them in his 
“ Amoenitates Exoticte,” published in 1712, under the 
generic name of Matricaria. Tournefort saw them, also, 
in the gardens round Nagasaki, and growing wild round 
about there, and in other places in Japan. J. Reeves, 
Esq., who is as fond of them as any of us, iind who lived 
in China many years, and sent us over many of the 
kinds, says that some of the varieties were originally 
imported from Japan; but whether the original jJant 
from which they sprung is a native of China, or of 
Japan, or of both places; or whether there be more 
than one original species of them, I believe no one can 
tell. Linnteus’s Clirysantliemam indiciim looks, from 
the figure, as if it ought to be ratlier the parent of the 
Pomponcs, instead of the “ Chusan Daisy.” 
laving plants of them were first introduced from 
China to Marseilles in 1769, and from Prance to Kew' 
in 1790; but the first of them flow'crcd in Colville’s 
Nursery in 1795. The Old Purjile, as it was called when 
I first heard of them, was a tassellod flow'cr of no great 
beauty. Sir Abraham Hume was among the first 
amateurs wdio began to introduce them on bis owm 
account, and he had eight kinds of them as early as 
1806. After that the Horticultural Society, under Air. 
Sabine, took them up very strongly, and sent out, first 
Air. Pots, and then Air. Parks, almost on purpose to 
collect Chrysanthemums. 
Mr. Sabine, who may be said to be the last of the 
jiedantic writers of such diffuse botanical explanations 
about a plant as rendered the plant and all aboutit a com¬ 
plete mystery to the rest of the w'orld, filled the pages of 
the “ Transactions” of the Society with such eulogiums of 
this flower as stirred u]) the mind of the whole kingdom 
to patronize them. Prom 1810 to 1820, or, rather, to 
Air. Sabine’s downfall with the Society, in 18J0, there 
w'as no flower half so popular in England ns the 
Clirysanthemum. In the middle of tliis enthusiasm, I 
took up the spade, and the current notions of the time, 
as matters of course; and from 1821 to 1851, when I 
bad, perhaps, the best collection of tbem in the king- 
doin, every move about them was at my finger’s ends. 
The first of them that I saw in the open border was 
the Early Blush, near Culloden, where the last battle 
was fought in the cause of tlie Pretender. In the 
autumn of 182(1, four kinds of Chrysanthemums flow'ored 
against the wall of the Inlirmary garden at Inverness, 
.just above tide-mark. About Porres, Pilgiu, and on to 
Gordon Castle, the early kinds from Cliina flowered 
quite freely out-of-doors in those days; but whether the 
; new ones w'ould do out so far north is more than I can 
tell; though I am q>uto sure that Pojujjones, which arc a 
j hardier race, wmuld flower out-of-doors round Inverness 
i just as well as about London. 
j That they should grow in Amboyna, in Cochin-China, 
j and in our own pine-stoves, in winter, without hurt, or 
signs of “ drawing,” is a most remarkable fact in the 
j history of herbaceous plants natives of temperate 
j climes; and I do not know of another such instance in 
j the whole range of gardening. I have said already, that 
I without cutting them down after flowering, w'C kept 
them over the winter on the kerbs of the pine-stove at 
Altyre, near Porres, when I was a lad, and they stood 
the heat as well as the Ixora or Pancratium; but when 
I wrote that, two years since, 1 was not aware that the 
Chinese induced them to sport into varieties by grafting 
so many kinds on one plant, ns then suggested, for the 
fulfilment of an old experiment which was begun at 
Altyre in 1825. Since Ihen, I have learned that some 
Chinese drawings, in the jiossession of the Horticultural 
Society, represent grafted plants of them, or rather 
j plants with so many various colours on one head as 
could bo bad only by grafting. 
Again, 1 earnestly repeat the advice to carry out this 
I experiment as was exjilained in the autumn of 1851. 
A gentleman, in Northamptonshire, keejis some of them 
in the stove every winter, on purpose to flower in the 
s])ring, as he told me himself not three months since. 
Mr. Cuthill, of Camberwell, had a medal, some years 
I since, from the Horticultural Society, for a large plant of 
Clnysanthemums in full bloom in Alay ; and I see no 
reason whatever against a general system of having 
Chrysanthemums and Pomponcs in flower from the end 
j of September to the middle or end of Alay, providing 
, you have the necessary conveniences, and choose to go 
to the expense of such luxury. But what would you 
I say to a bed of them planted out at the end of April to 
I flower all the summer with the bedding plants? Or, 
what would you think of a man who could repeat from 
1 memory the names of the ten best Chrysanthemums 
which were, in cultivation, every five years, from 1825 to 
i 1855, and who is now “ moping ” by the fire side for tlie 
' loss of his old favoured “ Tasseled,” yellows and whites ; 
his “ Quilled,” salmons and lilacs; his “ Changeubles;” 
ibis “Superb Clusters,” of this and that colour; his 
I “Starry,” buffs and browns; his “ Paper Whites;” his 
“ Golden Lotus;” and his “ AA’^aratahs” and “Spanish 
' Browns?” They are all gone, and reduced to three 
: strains, namely, the incurved, the half-ball, and the 
i Anemone-flowered, for no mortal reason, as he asserts, 
! than to satisfy a false and cjdiemeral fancy. Perhaps 
I the old man is right; perhaps not. 
j That the flowers have been improved to a most 
I extraordinary degree, of late years, is sure enough ; that 
the strains which have been introduced from Cliina and 
Japan have been curtailed, is equally true; that the 
incurved strain is now the pet of I'ashion, let the follow- 
I ing lists attest; and to prove that the raiiidity of the 
j improvement has been greater than most people in the 
j country would believe, let these lists be compared with 
1 the lists in the garden books of 1851 and 1852. 
That I have been a novice in Pomponcs, to this last 
season, is true enough ; but none of the improvements, 
or the alterations, or the change of lists of the larger 
Chrysanthemums, had taken me by surprise from the 
first day 1 saw them to this hour. 'J'hercfore, until you 
see a better assortment of them than the following, you 
may rely on this being the best and latest that could be 
made in this country. 
Tho best Chrysanthemums we have, according to my 
fancy, are Queen of Enyland, J/ermione, and Alfred 
Salter, in the incurved strain; Auguste Mii\ in the 
non-incurved section; and Pleure de Marie, in the 
Anemone-flowered strain. Hence, the small numbers 
I 
